ADL to US tycoon: Fire 'fascist' coach of top English soccer team

Paolo Di Canio gives a straight-arm salute to toward Lazio soccer fans after a game against Roma in Italy in January 2005.

By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

The Anti-Defamation League has called for American businessman Ellis Short to fire the newly appointed head coach of his English soccer team amid claims he is a fascist.

Paulo Di Canio was put in charge of Premier League team Sunderland AFC this week despite previously praising Italy’s World War II dictator Benito Mussolini, reportedly declaring himself a “fascist” and giving straight-arm salutes to fans in his home country Italy.

"I feel that I should not have to continually justify myself to people who do not understand this, however I will say one thing only -- I am not the man that some people like to portray," he said. "I am not political, I do not affiliate myself to any organization, I am not a racist and I do not support the ideology of fascism. I respect everyone."

Nigel Roddis/Reuters

Di Canio poses for photographs after taking over as Sunderland's new coach on Tuesday.

However, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, dismissed the statement and said Wednesday that Di Canio should be fired, comparing him to sacked Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice.

"I would say sports is a very special category. Sports plays a very important role with young people," he said. "I would say racism or bigotry reverberates in a greater way, so the standard needs to be much higher than, I would say, the manager of a garage."

"Our society uses athletes and sports figures not only to sell Wheaties and sneakers, but also because they are looked up to as role models," he said. "Here [with Di Canio], I think firing is appropriate."

'His job is at stake'Foxman said he believed people could have "an epiphany" about past mistakes and be given a second chance if they had genuinely changed.

"This is not one of those. He [Di Canio] is very clear what he is. He's both a fascist and a racist and he's proud of it," he said.

"For the moment, he denies it [being a fascist and a racist] because his job is at stake," he added.

A spokesman for Sunderland AFC said the club and Short would not be making any further comment when told of Foxman's call for Di Canio to be fired. Short said Monday that Di Canio was "passionate, driven and raring to get started."

Short made his fortune in the financial industry, previously working for companies including Lone Star Funds, an international, Dallas-based private equity firm.

The U.K.’s Guardian newspaper also noted that in his autobiography Di Canio wrote that Mussolini’s actions “were often vile. But all this was motivated by a higher purpose. He was basically a very principled individual."

In May 2012, Di Canio, then in charge of Swindon Town soccer club, dismissed a complaint of racism made by a black player at the club, Jonathan Tehoue, as a "non-story," BBC News reported. Swindon Town, however, said in a letter to Tehoue's lawyers that it "does not condone" what it described as "inappropriate" remarks made to the player by Di Canio and apologized.